Odyn's Advanced Bowman Tactics PvP Guide
7-27-10 UPDATE: This site sucks and i love sucking big asian cock What up Valkyrie Sky, so you wanna learn how to PvP? Well fret no more, I’m here to provide you with the most comprehensive guide to VS PvP you will ever lay eyes on. Finally, secrets are revealed. If you can make it all the way through this guide that is. If you've decided to play a Bowman in Valkyrie Sky, then congratulations. You've picked the most powerful, most fun class in VS. If not, then I hope to change your mind throughout this article. This is not just a guide to playing a Bowman in PvP but also an in-depth explanation into the workings of the Valkyrie Sky PvP system that any class can use to their advantage. So without further ado... Why play a Bowman? Pros 1. Has by far the best dps when combined with archer skills and passives 2. You can never lose to a swordsman (unless they use valk mode, whole different section here) 3. With one press of the attack button, you can fire three shots Cons (aka more reasons Bowmen are so fun to play) 1. Bowman class takes the most skill to master 2. No bullet blocking abilities Stat Build Should be fairly obvious. Dex all the way, until you reach max crit rate, then switch to pumping STR. Every 3 points in STR gives you .01 LP. Skill Build Being as how I’m only lvl 28, I haven’t tried out all of the Bowman skills for PvP. The skill build I use is Lead, Dragon, Dual and Rapid. Dual and Rapid are required for obvious reasons, but the other two can be debated. I use dragon because it’s got a good angle to cover a wider area of the sky field, but phoenix has its uses as well. Lead Shot: Can deal a good amount of damage at lvl 5 if you can land the initial shot. Initial shot is similar to the magician's normal attack in that if it hits the enemy on your screen, the effect will trigger and the homing arrows that spawn will never miss, never disappear until they hit the enemy. Guaranteed damage. Only way to stop it from cutting into hp is to switch to valk mode to have it cut into VP. Best used when up close as you have a higher chance of landing it. Dragon Shot: Great field coverage, multiple hits, faster than phoenix. Phoenix: Slow moving, multiple hits, does slightly better than dragons against valk mode. Recommendation: Do not get. Volley Shot: (theoretically) Great for keeping pesky mages at bay, lay a few of these down to keep them from rushing you unless they want to take damage. Technique Of the four classes, Bowmen have the longest dash per tap. That combined with the fact that they can shoot three times with only 1 press makes the Bowman an extremely technical character. Dashing Dash is THE most important thing in PvP. You need it both for offense to keep your attacks unpredictable, and for defense when you need to get away. You have a limited amount of dash, which you can kind of tell by your dash gauge circle around your character. When full, the gauge will be a complete light-cyan circle. As you start to use it, the circle breaks into a line encircling your character which turns more and more red. The gauge automatically recharges when you aren't holding down the attack button. Swordsman have the most dash gauge, followed by Bowmen, Mage, and then Summoner. Bowmen is the only class that has the longer dash per tap. Basically, tap to give yourself a movement boost, hold to dash through bullets (only in stages, not pvp). Your gauge decreases when you hit a bullet while dashing. That being said, you should NEVER hold down the dash button in PvP. Attacking Since you shoot 3 arrows per press, you should NEVER hold down the attack button, as it prevents your dash gauge from recharging. In essence, you can keep firing while recharging your gauge. Rhythm is extremely important to chain your next attack after your previous three arrows. If done correctly, you should have a constant stream of bullets even though you aren’t holding the attack button down. This allows you to recharge your dash gauge while still keeping pressure on your opponent. How to develop this rhythm? Those of you who are musically inclined will have an easier time with this. You can just count in your head using what ever method that works for you. One and-a 2 and-a 3 and-a 4 and-a, or 1 mississippi, 2 mississippi, whatever. As long as you can keep it up for a while without breaking rhythm. A good method to practice this is in stages. Eventually, you will be able to just do it naturally without conscious thought. Also, the rhythm is different in pvp than it is in stages. For some reason, it’s a little bit slower, so you have to adjust accordingly. Dashing + Attacking Normal attacking in PvP for Bowmen looks simple on the outside. You will always be facing your opponent (unless they are in invincibility frames, see swordsman section). Thus by default, your arrows will fire in the direction of the enemy character and will land if both of you are not moving. However, you should NEVER be not moving, and chances are you’re not going to hit jack by just hitting the attack button without combining it with your dash. In one dash (pvp) you can get a little under two full triplets in. Starting by attack-dash and then fitting in another attack while you’re still moving. When you really want to go on the offensive, dash attack diagonally inward, this shortens the length between your arrows while keeping them skewed. Another situation is when your opponent is just outside your dual shot lines, and is keeping pace with your dashing. In this case, you need to move-shoot diagonally backwards to widen the gap By default, any attack you fire will go in the direction of where your opponent is at the instant you fired it. This includes both normal arrows and skills. However, it is possible to change this, and make your attack go in the direction you want it to. This requires the help of strafe-shooting. To do this, you need to dash in a d irection a split second before your attack, you'll need to roll your hand from dash to attack to pull it off. How could this be useful? You won't hit a moving opponent normally, and even skewing your arrows sometimes isn't enough. By completely changing the direction your attack fires to, you can create new levels of arrow waves when combined with dual shot that your opponent certainly cannot dodge. The downside is that it requires you to use a dash, and successive uses can really drain your gauge. But by mastering this, you will achieve ungodly play and will be able to land lead shots on moving opponents from half a skyfield away. Most of this is against valk mode, but the de-valked parts are where my point is really illustrated. A word of warning against mages: since skills can be strafe shot as well, watch out for good players that can place their javelins. Always have a dash or two handy for that unexpected jav. Tactics Against Swordsman Any of their attacks that grant them invincibility frames will make you lose target on them (leap, dash, swordspin). Other than that, you should have a field day with them. They can never catch you if you keep dashing but you can always kill them. Against Summoners They will without a doubt go valk mode on you as soon as they can. Start by trying to dish out as much dmg to their hp as you can in the beginning, and after they valk, it’s just a long ass endurance test. There’s one thing a summoner can do in normal mode that’s quite deadly however: 100522-162959.JPG|Crow Spam 100522-163001.JPG|More Crow Spam 100522-163004.JPG|More Crow Spam 100522-163102.JPG|Crow Spam = GG Yeah, that shit is scary. Several ways to combat this. 1) if they’re not spamming it well, you can try to move in between the cracks or the much better, slightly riskier way 2) chances are they will be too busy trying to pull their spam off that they won’t try to normal attack you if you get a little close (unless IT’S A TRAP) you can get in close, fire off a few dragon/phoenixes/leads, and keep dashing around them circularly to avoid the birds. You might have to delay your normal attack and only use skills for pressure in order to have enough dashes to evade a skilled summoner’s birds. Against Mages As a Bowman, you should always be playing keep away. This case is no different. Against mages of similar level, you should be able to kill them before they kill you. Against mages of higher level, it is crucial to keep away from them as well as you can since lag makes their area of targeting up to 1.5x-2x larger if they dash towards you. Any semi-skilled magician can eventually corner you (yes lol, in a circular arena) to get off one or two chains. It is sometimes necessary to lessen your attacks or stop altogether in order to have enough dash gauge to evade them trying to corner you. The higher the level difference, the less the mage will have to worry about your attacks, the less you can keep them at bay with your arrows/skills, the more aggressive they will play, and the more challenging it will be. Their potential targeting area is about 1.5x what you see. If they dash at you, they can land a targeted attack on you before you see them rush you on your screen. When they are using whirlwind almost all of your arrows wil be blocked, so rush them with lead or dragon and rush out. You don’t want to get trapped by those ww’s so try to find an opening in between those and dash through asap. Even if you get touched a little, they won’t hurt as much as the other spells. Chain Break: Possibly the most deadly spell in the game combined with the magician's targetting mecahnics in pvp, as it does insane damage and works like the magician's normal attack. As long as the magician has targetted you and cast it on his screen, you will get hit by it, no matter where you see yourself on your screen (e.g. half the arena away). It also stops your dash gauge from recharging for a brief moment. Mana Balls: Few dashes will let you escape them. Here's some example footage ---> Against Other Bowmen If your opponent can skew arrows as well as you can, then it all comes down to who can dodge better in between the bullet streams and who can keep their attack stream the most continuous (e.g. rhythm, see above) Sometimes, you’ll notice that you both will keep moving up or down towards the edge of the stage in an effort to outskew each other, and when you hit the edge of the arena, that’s your chance to deal some serious damage. Imagine both of you going down vertically to the bottom of the field at about an equal pace. You’re trying to get him in between your dual arrows, and he’s trying to do the same. But eventually neither of you can dash down any further and someone’s going to end up moving back up into the stream. If you see this situation about to happen, before that point, you can fire off a dragon or two a little before you two hit the bottom, so when he dashes back up he’ll get a face full of frosty goodness. Or if he doesn’t, then the both of you will eventually be right in each other’s zones in which case you can get in a few lead shots as you swing by. Against Valk Mode A description and links to pictures of most of the awakening skills can be found HERE. It all depends on your opponents valk skills and how well you can dodge bullets in the skyfield. The general rule is: the farther away the easier to dodge. Lvl 60s usually have more than 3. Only thing to watch out for is when using your dash to dodge bullets. Since bowman dash is so long, it is harder to control than swordsman, and you might end up dashing right into a facefull of shiny orange death. Worst valk skill to go up against is Ver, the one that fires three streams of bullets directly at you with a few slow expanding circles around them. Note: They will have a certain period of invincibility when they first activate valk mode and you will lose target on them in that period. Using Fish to Your Advantage Yes. Buff fish work in PvP. This is the buff you get from heukchi. It increases the level of your all your skills by 1 at the start of a stage, but more importantly, at the start of a duel as well. So what? With just one extra skill level, you can put the pressure on as soon as the duel starts. Five dragons are always better than 4, and one more level of lead shot means 3 more uses that dish out 2 more homing arrows each. Marinated Heukchi ftw. Cheap, easy to make. They are your best friend unless you already maxed out your expertise. Other fish can work well too, more info on that when it comes. Lag A lot of players blame their losses on lag, and end up just giving up on the dueling system because of it. Sure, there are some cases where it's extremely hard to fight against, but in most cases, it can be overcome. In fact, lag is the thing that makes PvP in VS so exciting. You can never be sure what will hit, what will hit you, or how close or far away you actually are from the enemy. The unpredictability is an adrenaline rush. Don't let the negatives deter you from mastering PvP. Learn to exploit the lag to the benefit of your character. Key Points *What you see on your screen is your enemy about 1-2 seconds ago. Thus, predicting their movement is key (if you're a swordsman; bowman just spam arrows, hoping they hit on opponent's screen) *Magicians are your worst enemy when it comes to lag. See above for targetting system mechanics. *Lead shot will fire its homing arrows only if the caster '''sees his initial shot hit the target on his own screen *Swordsmen get the shaft, all of their spells must hit the target on the '''target's screen in order for damage to be done **e.g. Spirit Swords must make contact on the target's screen. JP VS Server I've recently found out how to get into JP Valkyrie Sky! They are pretty much bug free since they aren't managed by some shit game portal like Gamekiss, and actually have +EXP and +Gran events. If you're done with bullshit and don't mind the text being in japanese or starting a new character, just follow these instructions: 1. Change your locale to Japan. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-the-system-locale 2. Make an account on www.joycity.jp 3. Log in and hit Game Start to download the client. All straightforward from there. Conclusions Hopefully, all you whiny kids will go forth and master the pvp system instead of complaining about it. Remember, it’s not about your false sense of internet pride that nobody cares about. It’s about learning the tactics and honing your technique so that in the end, you can beat people 10 levels higher than you and run around Flygheim spamming “WHO’S YO DADDEH?” Category:Bowman Builds Category:PvP Category:Heukchi